Awakening
by Romulan Empress
Summary: SPOILERS! for chapters in the 140 to 160 range or so. Celes from Ashura's awakening to Fai's arrival, from Ashura's point of view. No pairings, Ashura and Fai centric.


SPOILERS for chapters in the 140-160 range or so.

The dreams were a pleasant respite from the growing insanity I felt destroying my mind, for they were generally good. Still, throughout the months I slept, there was a nagging knowledge at the back of my mind that someday I would need to wake up and finish what had been set into motion all those years ago. This, I suppose, kept me from being truly at peace while I was unconscious.

The first thing I felt upon awakening was disorientation. The world above was foreign and distorted by countless ripples and bubbles. Something around me was using dimension magic, and as always, there was that little need to kill tugging at my mind and warping my thoughts. It was dormant for the moment though, for I sensed no living beings around me.

That thought reminded me of Fai, and I finally realized where I was. My last memory was of that magician, looking at me from across the characters of my own sleep spell, desperately attempting to prevent the inevitable. He must have put me under the water, like his brother, while he went… where? There was no sign of anything living in this country, except myself, which meant that Fai must have left on his journey.

With a short few characters, I broke the spells keeping me alive and underwater and swam to the surface of the small pool. Fai's machine doll sat by the edge of the pool. Then, it must have been from her that I felt the dimension magic, which meant Fai would probably be here soon. Still, if he was in another world, in another flow of time, it might be weeks or months before he arrived. That was alright, for with all my subjects murdered, I had nothing to do but wait for him. Chii would find him for me.

I had her find a new robe for me while I checked on the other Fai. He still slept, but the day the feather inside would awaken was nearing even as my own life was drawing to its end. Whether sooner or later, Fai would have to return, and when that happened, both feathers and my life were forfeit. A sad smile crossed my lips, for I knew it would break Fai's heart to have two of those he loved taken from him by the same event.

I wanted to protect Fai. Before meeting him, everything I did was for the good of Celes. Since meeting him, everything I did was for the good of Celes, or to protect Fai. I no longer knew which was more important to me. When I felt the curse from the twins take hold of my mind and begin to warp it, I did my utmost to prevent Fai from finding out. I restrained my killing sprees to night, when Fai and the rest of the country were sleeping soundly, and attempted to murder those in out of the way places, where they would not be reported in Fai's hearing.

When I made my first mistake, and came home with blood on my hand, I thought the farce was over. Still, Fai did not find out, and I continued killing, sick with worry and horror, but always as normal as I could be to the boy I had taken in. He was not ready yet. I would not break his heart yet, so I would kill Celes to protect him. He did not need to suffer anymore. I had to be able to break his curse along with his heart, so I remained silent.

The ruse ended when that imbecile came in reporting news of a "beast" that was slaughtering people. I realized then that in being kind to the young prince, Celes had formed an attachment to him that would be his undoing. At that point, I had to give up my charade and confess that our country had not escaped his curse. Yet, he refused to kill me, giving me enough time to rid the castle, and thus Celes, of its remaining inhabitants. That led to the sleep spell and my long time of dreaming.

How long had it been since Fai left? The cold preserved the bodies, so there was no way to tell time by rot, and spells kept dusk out of the castle interior. It might have been the day I fell asleep, and in the only really important way, it was. For Fai, months or maybe even years would have passed, due to the different flow of time in other worlds, but for me, I was the same as I had been on that day. The good thing about sleep, the lack of other living beings, and Fai's absence was that my mind had not deteriorated further.

Clothed in a simple robe and a thick wrap, I took to my library. With no one with whom to speak, I took refuge in books until the moon rose outside my window. It was waning. In another few days, it would completely disappear. The wrap fell from my shoulders as I let the book droop and rested my head back against the wall. I could not concentrate. With Fai's haunted eyes swimming in my memory, I drifted in and out of an uneasy slumber.

Chii contacted Fai again in the morning. I was picking at my breakfast, hoping time in Celes flowed more quickly than in whatever world the magician was currently. The comparative quietude of the insanity left too much room for thought, which led to doubt. I could not afford doubt, so I continued to affirm to myself that by hurting Fai temporarily, I was protecting him.

As the hours passed, I wondered if perfectly natural insanity caused by loneliness would take the place of curse-induced insanity. I wandered the halls restlessly, as though in a trace. The endless pillars of ice reflected my appearance back at me a hundred times, a thousand times, always showing the same ageless man with long, black hair and golden eyes. Only the emotion in those twin orbs changed, now doubting, now angry, now cold.

In the late hours of the afternoon, I felt a path between dimensions open in the castle. Praying for Fai's return and desperately hoping he would not return, I hurried through the castle to the source of the magic. A bubble of space-time hung in the air, caught by some powerful force from the world to which it was connected. Unable to do anything, unable to tell what was happening, I watched the sifting colours of that portal until finally, some indeterminable amount of time later, Chii returned.

She was not alone. Wrapped in her arms was the body of a young girl I had never seen before with a jagged hole in her chest as though she had been stabbed violently. Yet, I could immediately tell that this girl was living, and the tiny urge to kill started tickling the back of my thoughts. I repressed it as best I could and watched in fascination as Chii lowered the girl to the ground. The magic that created her then unraveled, leaving in the place of the machine doll a large, pink feather. This entered the girl's chest, disappearing from both my sight and my senses.

I knelt beside the girl and examined her. There was no soul within the body before me, yet she was still alive. The part of me that was still me was fascinated by such a phenomenon even as the curse-ridden part of me wished to end her life. I won my battle with insanity one more time and lowered the girl into the same pool as Fai in order to keep the body from dying from the hole in its chest. Somehow, this girl was important to my Fai, and I would not let her die until I found out why. Chii had failed to retrieve Fai, but the very presence of the girl meant that he would soon follow.

I changed into a formal robe more suitable for receiving guests and waited, seated next to the pool which contained those precious to the one precious to me. Gone were the hours of pacing, for a nervous anticipation had seized me and I could not have moved if I tried. Still no one came as evening passed into night, and I fell into another uneasy half-slumber, every nerve taut with hope and despair.

They arrived the next day, though at what I hour I could not have said. I felt the dimension magic of the feathers, intermingled with Fai's magic, the moment my visitors arrived somewhere outside the castle. Fai had with him three companions, all of whom tickled my desire to kill as pollen triggers a sneeze.

"Later," I promised the madness. Already I could feel it twining through my thoughts, mentioning that if I needed to _persuade_ my magician, killing his precious companions was not a bad idea. The part of me that was still me countered by pointing out that I could hardly have Fai kill me without some sort of explanation for the innocents with him. Knowing the magician's secretive nature, I decided it would be best to show them his story from the beginning. To this end, I pulled his twin from the water and held the boy to my side as I stood, waiting. The feather, as though sensing that the place it belonged was near, animated the boy. He stood silently with my arm around him.

After a brief touch of unfamiliar magic, the door before me opened. A tall, black-haired man and a shorter boy with a white creature on his shoulder stood in the background and before them stood the one I wanted and dreaded to see. Fai had changed in his travels, growing his hair long enough to be contained within a ponytail and sporting a black cloth over one eye. I sensed that his magic power had been halved by the loss of that eye, and somehow he had lost the symbol I gave him. That was all the better for my plan though.

"Welcome back, Fai," I said with a pleased smile, unable to stop myself from being happy to see him again. As I locked my eyes to his, I felt the doubts that had plagued me over the past two days disappear, to be replaced with serenity and certainty. Today I would certainly die, but I would gladly relinquish my life to grant Fai a chance at true, permanent happiness. The boy so tormented all his life would finally get a chance to live.


End file.
